Re: Raiders.

Captain Katanga was a black guy, and he was one of the smartest people in Raiders. And there's nothing wrong with the depiction of the Arabs. I think you're way over-thinking the subject.

Excessive concern about the depiction of race and gender in movies will only lead to every villain being played by a white Englishman.

You're right that Katanga is one of the most fleshed out non-white characters - he has what, four lines? The issue I have with the depiction of 'the Arabs', is that it's just that - virtually none of them are characters, and the ones that are are stereotypically comic.

The issue is not their villainy, it's the lack of attention to them as characters. I presume your comment about white Englishmen is sarcastic (it's sometimes hard to tell on the internet), because that's precisely the kind of lazy stereotyping that I'm calling out. We telegraph everything you need to know about a character into the common beliefs we have about the characteristics of their race and gender. We even see this with the monkey spy - how does the movie signal that he is untrustworthy? He's dressed like an Arab...

Re: Raiders.

Until it's blown up on an Imax screen (even fake Imax) you don't notice little issues like the camera occasionally losing focus in some of the medium shots. I definitely loved the new sound remaster, though. I never heard water dripping from the ceiling of the Peruvian caves before.

Re: Raiders.

No, she's right. Indy was not needed for the stuff to happen at the end. He just delayed it a little. The Nazis were going to die anyway, with or without Indy's help. The guys talk about this in the commentary that this is the thread for.

Re: Raiders.

Just showed Raiders to my six year old. She loved it. She thought the action was exciting, the heroes wonderful, and the treasure beautiful. Her biggest takeaway of the whole film, however, was the mind-blowing scene where THAT GUY ATE A BUG! DID YOU SEE THAT DAD!! THERE WAS A FLY ON HIS MOUTH AND HE ATE IT! I CAN'T WAIT TO TELL ALL MY FRIENDS ABOUT THIS MOVIE!

Re: Raiders.

Re: Raiders.

Re-upping due to the burning of the Library of AlexanDIFa—here's 50 pages' worth of scans from the 1981 American Cinematographer issue on the making of Raiders, including in-depth articles on the shoot, the VFX, and the stunts as well as content by Spielberg himself.

Re: Raiders.

DarthPraxus wrote:

Re-upping due to the burning of the Library of AlexanDIFa—here's 50 pages' worth of scans from the 1981 American Cinematographer issue on the making of Raiders, including in-depth articles on the shoot, the VFX, and the stunts as well as content by Spielberg himself.